Royal Knights Arena
Match: Team Finral vs. Team Langris (The Aftermath)
The crowd was dead silent. The cheers had choked off minutes ago, replaced by the suffocating pressure of murderous intent.
Finral Roulacase, the "Taxi of the Black Bulls," lay crumpled on the scorched rock floor. His clothes were shredded, blood pooling around his head. His spatial crystal had shattered five minutes ago, but the attacks hadn't stopped.
Standing over him was Langris Vaude.
"Stand up," Langris hissed, his eyes twitching with a madness that felt... ancient. "Stand up, failure! Don't you dare look pitiable! Fight me so I can erase you properly!"
Langris raised his right hand. Space warped around his fingers. Dozens of Archangel Shootdown spheres—floating balls of absolute void—materialized.
"Goodbye, Brother."
He fired.
The spheres swarmed toward Finral's unconscious body. They didn't push air; they deleted it. If they touched him, Finral wouldn't just die—parts of him would simply cease to exist.
BOOM.
Dust and debris exploded upward. The impact shook the floating island.
Langris smirked. "Finally. Cleaned up."
The smoke drifted away.
Finral wasn't dead. In fact, he was completely untouched.
Standing over him, black wing unfurled and Anti-Magic sword planted in the rock, was Asta. His demon eye glowed red.
"You..." Asta growled, his voice vibrating with something deeper than rage. "Are you really his family?"
To the left, a flaming bat cracked against a skull. Magna Swing stood there, teeth grit.
To the right, Luck Voltia pressed crackling lightning boots against Langris's throat.
The Black Bulls had invaded the match.
"We don't care about the exam!" Magna screamed, eyes watering. "You touch our ride again, we kill you!"
"Insects!" Langris shrieked, preparing another spell. "Get off me!"
Then, the air pressure dropped.
It wasn't mana pressure. It was physical weight. The oxygen in the arena seemed to become lead.
Crunch.
Footsteps.
Saitama walked into the circle. He wasn't rushing. He was holding a half-eaten bag of potato chips. He walked right past Asta, right past Magna, and stood directly in front of Langris.
He looked down at Finral. Then at Langris.
"Hey," Saitama said. His voice was flat, bored, but it carried across the entire stadium. "Did you break the green guy?"
Langris sneered, pushing Luck away with a spatial pulse. "I was disposing of trash. What does it matter to a peasant like—"
Saitama crunched a chip.
"He takes me to the grocery store," Saitama stated.
He pointed a gloved finger at Finral.
"Do you know how far the walk is from the base to the capital? It's four hours. Do you know how much a taxi costs? It's 500 Yuls. This guy?" Saitama pointed back at Finral. "He's free."
Langris blinked. "You... you're upset about transportation?"
"I'm upset about the inconvenience," Saitama said. "And you're being loud."
"Saitama!" Asta yelled, hoisting Finral onto his shoulder. "He tried to kill him! In a match!"
"Get him to the nurse," Saitama told Asta without looking back. "I'm fighting this guy next, right?"
"Technically!" Julius's voice boomed from the stands, sounding uncharacteristically serious. "Due to the bracket structure... Yes. Team Saitama vs. Team Langris is the semi-final. In five minutes."
Saitama tossed the empty chip bag into a trash can (banking it perfectly off a rock).
He looked at Langris.
"Don't go anywhere. You owe me a ride."
Five Minutes Later: The Semi-Final
Team P (Saitama, Kirsch, Sekke)
vs.
Team G (Langris, Fragil, Unknown Guy)
The map reset. A dense forest terrain materialized.
"So tragic!" Kirsch Vermillion spun around, creating a whirlwind of rose petals. "The brotherly strife! The ugliness of hatred! I must beautify this battlefield!"
"I'm hiding!" Sekke shrieked, rolling his bronze ball into a bush. "Bah-ha! That Langris guy is psycho! Good luck, Baldy!"
Saitama stood in the center of the clearing.
Opposite him, hovering in the air with spatial magic, was Langris. The madness hadn't faded; it had curdled. The elf soul inside him—Ratriz—was clawing at the surface, fueled by Langris's inferiority complex.
"You think you're special," Langris spat. Dark mana flared. "You flipped a tank. You punched a devil. Everyone talks about you."
"Do they?" Saitama picked at his ear. "I haven't seen any royalty checks."
"I WILL ERASE YOU!" Langris roared. "I will prove that I am the beloved of mana! SPATIAL MAGIC: ARCHANGEL DESTRUCTION!"
He waved his hand.
It wasn't a few spheres this time. It was a swarm. Hundreds of void-balls, humming like angry wasps. They auto-tracked mana signatures.
"Genos," Saitama called to the sidelines.
"Yes, Master!"
"Does that erasing magic hurt?"
Genos projected a quick hologram. "Analysis: The magic displaces matter into a null-dimension. It ignores durability. Anything it touches is deleted. Recommended Action: Do not allow contact with biological tissue."
"Okay," Saitama nodded. "So just don't get touched. Easy."
"Easy?!" Langris screamed. "DIE!"
The swarm launched.
Saitama started walking.
The first sphere aimed for his nose.
Saitama tilted his head two degrees to the left. The sphere missed, erasing a patch of air next to his ear.
"One."
Three more aimed for his chest.
Saitama sucked in his gut and did a little hop. The spheres collided with each other and vanished.
"You're aiming is sloppy," Saitama critiqued, continuing his stroll.
"SHUT UP!" Langris unleashed the torrent. A gatling gun of spatial erasure. The forest around Saitama vanished. Trees were deleted instantly. Rocks ceased to exist.
But Saitama was doing the Serious Side-Steps.
To the audience, he looked like he was glitching. Dozens of afterimages flickered as he weaved through the curtain of death.
Left. Right. Duck. Pivot. Jump.
He wasn't running away. He was closing the distance.
"How?!" Langris shrieked, backing up in the air. "Space is absolute! It eats everything! Why won't you disappear?!"
"I don't feel like disappearing today," Saitama said, appearing ten feet below Langris. "I have dinner plans."
Langris felt true fear. It was the same fear he felt with the Witch Queen, but worse. This man didn't use magic to counter him. He just... existed harder than the magic.
"I am the Elite!" Langris's voice distorted. The elf marks on his face glowed brighter. "I WILL NOT LOSE TO A MAN WITH NO MANA! SPATIAL MAGIC: ARCHANGEL'S JUDGMENT!"
He poured his life force into the spell.
He didn't create balls. He created a Wall.
A vertical wall of absolute void, extending from the ground to the sky, rushing forward like a tsunami of nothingness. There was no way to dodge left or right. It was a screen wipe for reality.
"Oh my," Kirsch stopped dancing. "That... is actually quite dangerous."
"WE'RE DEAD! BAH-HA!" Sekke cried from his bush.
Saitama stopped walking. He looked up at the wall of erasure looming over him.
"You really like deleting things," Saitama said. "It's wasteful."
He planted his feet. He raised his right hand.
He flattened his palm. A simple karate chop stance.
"If space is in the way..."
Saitama chopped.
"Serious Series: Serious Chop."
His hand came down.
He didn't hit the magic. He hit the air before the magic.
The kinetic force created a blade of compressed wind. But it wasn't just wind. The sheer mass and speed of the movement tore a fissure in atmospheric pressure.
K-CHOW.
The wind blade hit the Void Wall.
Usually, magic absorbs physical attacks. But Saitama's physics bullied the magic.
The Void Wall split.
The "Nothingness" was physically cut in half. The erasure spell parted like a curtain, the two halves diverting harmlessly to the left and right of Saitama, carving deep ravines into the landscape behind him.
Langris hovered in the middle, right in the path of the chop.
The wind pressure didn't kill him. Saitama had calculated it.
But it stripped him.
His Golden Dawn robe? Shredded into confetti.
His shirt? Gone.
His boots? Dust.
The shockwave continued, slicing through the barrier of the arena, parting the clouds for miles, and allegedly knocking a toupee off a noble watching from three cities over.
Langris floated there. He was uninjured. But he was wearing nothing but his heart-patterned boxers and socks.
The spatial magic fizzled out.
Saitama stood below him, dusting off his shoulder.
"That magic is pretty flimsy," Saitama said, looking up at the shivering, semi-naked Vice-Captain. "If you hit it hard enough, it breaks."
Langris looked at his hands. He looked at the parted clouds. He looked at Saitama's bored face.
His superior complex shattered.
"Ee..." Langris squeaked. "Eeegh..."
He passed out from the sheer weight of his own L.
Thud.
Langris face-planted into the dirt.
WINNER: TEAM SAITAMA!
The King, in his royal box, choked on his tea. "He... he stripped a noble?! With a hand chop?! ARREST HIM!"
"We can't," Damnatio Kira sighed, adjusting his scales. "Technically, clothes are collateral damage in a sanctioned duel. And frankly, I don't want to be chopped next."
The Twist
Saitama walked back to the waiting room. Kirsch was staring at him with a mix of horror and artistic inspiration ("The raw muscular form... removing the artificial layers of clothing... BEAUTIFUL!").
Genos was waiting. "Match time: 42 seconds. Efficiency rating: S. However, Master, you destroyed the map's ecosystem."
"The trees were fake, Genos."
Saitama sat down. "So, who's the final boss? The wind guy?"
"Projected opponent: Yuno or Rill," Genos confirmed.
Saitama cracked a new can of soda. "Alright. One more fight, then 50 million Yuls. I'm gonna buy a premium hot tub."
But then, the alarm sounded.
Not the tournament buzzer. The Kingdom Invasion Alarm.
The sky outside turned a sickly, pulsating red. Beams of light shot up from all over the Capital—from the nobles' quarters, from the barracks, even from the waiting room next door.
"What now?" Saitama groaned.
Genos stood up, his eyes scanning rapidly. "Master. Massive energy spikes detected. Not external. Internal."
In the hallway, the door to the other waiting room exploded.
Luck Voltia walked out.
But it wasn't Luck.
His lightning wasn't cheerful blue. It was jagged yellow. His ears had elongated. Markings covered his face. His grin was gone, replaced by an expression of cold, ancient joy.
"Humans..." Luck—or the Elf possessing him, Rufel—whispered. He looked at Magna, who was rushing over.
"Luck? Buddy?" Magna asked. "What's with the face paint?"
Luck moved. He grabbed Magna by the throat and slammed him through three walls.
"Revenge," the Elf said softly. "After centuries... revenge."
Across the arena, Gauche stood up, his mirror eye glowing purple.
In the VIP box, the captain of the Purple Orcas transformed.
"Possession," Genos analyzed, powering up his cannons. "Rewriting biological hosts. It's an outbreak."
Saitama crumpled his soda can.
"Does this mean the tournament is cancelled?" Saitama asked.
"Yes, Master. The Kingdom is falling."
Saitama's face shadowed. He stood up.
"My prize money..."
He turned to the possessed Luck.
"Hey, lightning kid!" Saitama shouted. "Tell your ghost friends to knock it off! I was about to be rich!"
Luck laughed, sparks flying. "Rich? You will be dead, human."
Saitama walked forward.
"Genos."
"Yes, Master?"
"We're doing overtime. No extra pay."
"Understood. Eliminating ghosts."